The young Iranian man who “admitted” on Iranian TV last Tuesday, Jan. 11 that he had acted for the Israeli Mossad in the murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi is revealed in real life byDEBKAfile‘s Iranian sources as a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ secret reserve death squad of brawny sportsmen used to cut down opponents of the regime and break up protest rallies.
DEBKAfile‘s Iranian sources had uncovered the real Majid Jamali Fashi – a champion kick boxer, a professional terminator and an ardent fan of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As a sportsman, his face is familiar to people in Iran from the media and the Internet. Until late 2009, he represented his country in international kick-boxing contests.
Iranian intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi must have realized that putting him on national TV as a Mossad spy to support his boast that Iranian agents had penetrated the Mossad networks he claimed were spread across the country would open more than one can of worms.
If Majid had really been recruited by Mossad, this would have been a feather in the cap of the Israeli spy service – not Tehran. It would have told the television audience that Mossad’s tentacles had not only reached into Iran’s nuclear program but also the elite clandestine ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, the IRGC. So why make it the subject of a boast?
Majid Jamali Fash’s real persona is disclosed here by our Iranian sources: He was born in Tehran in 1978 and after completing his military service with the IRGC, took up kick boxing while continuing to serve the Guards as a reservist. He and hundreds of his fellow champion sportsmen belong to a unit which is regularly called up for undercover work such as liquidating enemies of the regime and breaking the heads, arms and legs of regime opponents.
In the summer of 2009, the young sportsman was employed in the brutal break-up of the mass street rallies protesting the rigged election which gave Ahmadinejad his second term.
Tehran’s practice of employing national sporting talent as IRGC hatchet men in “crowd control” has drawn angry protests from the international federations of Taekwondo, Judo, Karate, Kung fu and other martial arts.
Because of his fame, Iranian audiences found it hard to revise their view of Jamali-Fashi as a Mossad agent.
Many decided his performance was faked by Iranian intelligence. However, opposition circles did believe in his role as assassin of Prof. Mohammadi, though not in the service of Israel but his IRGC masters because the late professor supported the opposition’s cause.
In the second half of 2009, the leading Iranian nuclear scientist attended meetings of opposition leaders and signed petitions against the regime.
His destruction was ruled because Prof, Mohammadi was seen as betraying the elite class of academics and intelligentzia, the nuclear science corps, on whose loyalty the regime counts heavily. They could not afford to let him be identified as crossing over to the opposition.
The secret Guards unit specializing in these missions was therefore assigned with his liquidation. The young kick boxer Majid was enlisted.
So why did the intelligence minister lift the veil from this episode?
As usual the Islamic Republic of Iran’s rulers’ motives are mixed and enigmatic.
The word in Tehran is that the intelligence ministry will have to go through with the performance to its logical conclusion and announce the execution of Majid the Mossad spy. He will then be given a new identity and his face remodeled by plastic surgery before dropping out of sight.
The other theory is more elaborate: Majid fell prey to the real power struggle waged between the intelligence ministry and the IRGC commanders for some months. The latter decided to use the kick boxer as a scapegoat for Prof. Mohammadi’s assassination by claiming he committed the murder at the behest of a rogue Guards unit without receiving a formal order.
Majid’s future is therefore uncertain.
After admitting that the scientist’s death caused extreme damage to Iran’s nuclear program, Moslehi must find someone to punish. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will no doubt be called upon to settle the dispute within the country’s intelligence community – along with the fate of Majid. The champion terminator’s. TV performance as a Mossad agent may have been his last.